The solitude of a recent swim in the Ruby-Horsethief section of the Colorado River.

Black Rocks, empty and quiet, during a river trip on the Ruby-Horsethief section of the Colorado River? Unheard of. At least not since, say, about 1965… But there we were, for about four hours, riding through the rapids repeatedly in our PFDs, picnicking along the banks and generally having a great time, the 15 of us. And not another soul.

Sure, the water was at about 2,650 cfs – and this is still July — compared to over 5,000 cfs at the end of the season in October last year. That’s when our trip turned ugly, when Black Rocks was truly Party Central. Someone was shooting off a 9mm against the rocks, others had bottle rockets and more illegal fireworks galore, and people were stealing each others’ campsites because there were just too many coming down this popular stretch – including our site, forcing us onto another one. It had gotten to the point that some people simply rafted had to the takeout in the dark.

That’s why this year, the Bureau of Land Management instituted a permit system for weekend floats in this section, the 25-mile stretch from the Loma put-in west of Grand Junction to the Westwater Ranger Station takeout. Until next season, it’s free. You call in 60 days prior to your launch date and try to snag the campsite you want. For weekdays, Sunday-Thursday launches, you still sign in at Loma for self-issued permits, first-come, first-served at campsites.

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We decided to head off the water quickly when the sky turned dark with smoke from nearby fires.

The bad news is, the phone starts ringing at the BLM Grand Junction Field Office the second it opens at 8 a.m. Monday-Friday, so the sites go fast. We got the last two for this past weekend, which meant Mee 3 for the first night – a decent but shadeless site with canyon wall views wedged between the other Mee sites – and a new one this year, the Island Camp, which back when I called, the person at the Field Office told me, and I am quoting from the exact notes I wrote down at the time, was the “last camp before you get off the river.” (I have since found the list of campsites with mileages, and that’s helpful.)

Except it’s not the last camp, it’s before Knowles 1. This misinformation wound up being a game-changer for us on the river, although ultimately not a bad one. Part of our group missed the camp – which doesn’t have its name on the sign yet – and part stopped, and then we wound up regrouping just as we started to see smoke pouring over the cliffs from three fires. Helicopters and planes were flying in, we could see smokejumpers being released, and the sky turned black.

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Learning how to raft for the first time is serious business.

And then we decided to get the heck out of there, fast, because we could see flames over the cliffs.

Later we found out that it was the Brush Creek fire, which is still going, as well as several other smaller fires that had been started by lightning. We wound up camping at the Westwater ranger station takeout, which is where the shuttle had been set up for our cataraft.

It’s the first raft trip I’ve been on in more than a decade during a fire ban, which considering how we were chased off the river, was probably a good thing. However, there’s no question that not being able to have a campfire changes the evenings…it’s not quite the same gathering around the buggy lantern.

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On a calm section of river like Ruby-Horsethief, a packraft is perfect.

But why the river was devoid of people – we saw two women rafting with their golden-doodle dog, and one other group with their kids, and that’s it, on a river with 35 campsites, most of which hold 25 each – on a gorgeous July weekend is beyond me. Are people really that hung-up on river levels? So there were fires around us; we still went and had an amazing time.

“I don’t understand it,” says Tom Kleinschnitz, owner of Grand Junction-based Adventure Bound USA. “I guess the drought vernacular out there, it’s pretty powerful, makes people think it’s no fun. Back when I first started out, in my 20s, we just went boating. You didn’t think about how high the river was, you were talking about who was going and what you were taking.”

I’m with Kleinschnitz. We took several folks this time who had never been on a multi-day river trip before – and a couple who had never been river rafting period – and they said they had the time of their lives. When we got to Black Rocks, we handed the oars over to some of the teenagers, who by then had become quite savvy at setting up and navigating, and they did great.

“When you get out to places like that, the point is, you’re getting unplugged,” Kleinschnitz says, who adds that there’s plenty of water on the Green River right now, especially in the Lodore Canyon section. “You get to walk away form civilization for 48 hours, or if you’re really lucky, 5 days or longer. Where you get to be in your own head.”

When BLM made the move to use permits, they added seven sites (including the Island one we missed), and according to Katie Stevens of the BLM, they decided to allow outfitters to use 17 percent (6 of the 35) of those on a rotating basis.

This was a tough year to try to determine how well the system works, however, between the drought and the fires. “Some of the perceptions about the drought are inevitable, even if they’re not true, but even more so the fires, they’re really hard to overcome,” Kleinschnitz says. “If we were only dependent upon people in our own state it would be one thing, but I’ve had people calling from across the country who want to know how bad it is. And so then you wonder, what about the call that didn’t get made, the people who just assume we’re sitting around in scarred, blackened vegetation. I’d love the opportunity to tell them, but I worry about the call that didn’t come.”

Although I think permit systems are a mixed bag – I haven’t been able to get one for several popular rivers because of the lottery system for years now – it clearly makes this one a smoother experience. BLM says that they anticipate charging a fee starting in the 2013 season, but the exact amount hasn’t been determined yet; it’s likely to depend upon the size of the group.

Two things we discovered on this trip: Camping the night before at the Fruita section of the James M. Robb-Colorado River State Park and launching from there is delightful and adds about an hour and a half of welcome river time – and some hassle, because one of our group accidentally forgot to put the sticker from the park entrance envelope on his car, and the ranger just about took his head off in the morning – and renting the extra boats we needed for our flotilla from Rimrock Adventures was an excellent decision. They could not have been more helpful and cool.

They did the shuttle for our cataraft, too, and let us park the extra vehicles at their giant lot. Cost for each 16-foot raft, which included dry box and cooler, oars and extra PFDs, was $130 a day, and they dropped off the inflated boats at the put-in.

The group is still divided, however, on whether Little Debbie snack cakes are delicious — I’d say it’s a 50-50 split.

Kyle Wagner is the editor of the Travel and OutWest sections at The Denver Post.

Kyle, Great read, The drift sounds wonderful, I may have to try it sometime, and the report that I have already received from some of the “river rats” is glowing. Glad everyone had such a fun, and safe trip………….and I vote for the “little debbies”

Chris Zeller

If you are renting from RimRock you can launch on their property and all launch together plus park your cars there rather than at the state park that charges a day use fee.

Kyle Wagner

That’s true, Chris, about RimRock! The reason we didn’t do that is that we had a bunch of people we had to group together from Glenwood and Denver, and that required camping the night before. Either way, we would have had to pay some kind of fee for that…but if you don’t have to camp, that would absolutely be a great way to go…

Travel and OutWest editor Kyle Wagner grew up in Pittsburgh and lived in Lake County, Ill., and Naples, Fla., before moving to Denver in 1993, where she reviewed restaurants for Westword before moving to The Denver Post in 2002. She considers the best days to be those that involve her teenage daughters and doing something outside, preferably mountain biking or whitewater rafting.

Dean Krakel is a photo editor (primarily sports) at The Denver Post. A native of Wyoming, he has authored three books, "Season of the Elk," "Downriver" and "Krakel's West." An avid kayaker, rafter, mountain biker, trail runner, telemark skier and backpacker, Dean's outdoor adventures have taken him around the world.

Douglas Brown was raised about 30 miles west of Philadelphia in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where he spent a lot of time running around in the woods and fields (where he hunted and explored), and in the ocean (where he surfed and stared at the horizon). Now he lives in Boulder and spends as much time hiking, running, skiing and boarding the High Country (and the Boulder foothills) as possible.

Ricardo Baca is the entertainment editor and pop music critic at The Denver Post, as well as the founder and executive editor of Reverb and the co-founder of The UMS. Happy days often involve at least one of these: whitewater rafting, snowshoeing, vintage Vespas, writing, camping, live music, road trips, snowboarding or four-wheeling.